


Pray

by Fluffinson (orphan_account)



Category: Dark (Netflix)
Genre: Abuse, M/M, and the scene with Ulrich and little Helge, which is a warning unto itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-19 10:51:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13122222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Fluffinson
Summary: A look into Noah and Helge's destructive relationship.Based on the assumption Noah is Bartosz Tiedemann and he traveled back in order to groom Helge.





	1. Prey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretending Bernd Doppler is dead in this fic...

 

 

 

Noah knew what he saw.

The man would do anything for a hug, for a crumb of human affection.

The boy, meanwhile, would do anything for people to stop _hurting_ him.

Both attributes were profanely useful.

And it was important that Noah wait until after Ulrich had had his way with Helge - had beaten the last bit of sass and defiance out of him and left him bloody.

It wasn't that it delighted Noah. Even hearing Greta's confessions - and her own reservations about making the boy strip and her lack of love for the child - only excited Noah in the most pedestrian ways. He was gathering dirt, ready to get it under his fingernails. Finding ways to shape time to his liking.

Noah needed a second. Want didn't enter into it.

To be frank - he didn't just need a second man, he needed _Helge_. Claudia had told him as much.

It wouldn't work without him.

If Noah would have known how gentle the man would be - even without the heavy weight of all the added trauma - he probably wouldn't have bothered grooming him. He'd have only appeared and waited for Helge to fall into his arms at the barest suggestion of affection.

Only he hadn't known.

As it is he keeps a vigil by little Helge's bedside and waits for him to wake up.

 

 

 

A game they often play is, Remember my face.

Helge's quiet, when he wakes up. Has the thousand yard stare of a soldier. Noah would know.

The boy is embarrassingly easily won. And if Helge were Noah's child, he would fear for him. Instead he feels a vague bit of scorn.

 _Remember my face_. It's important.

He lets Helge feel his face - tiny hands roaming while Helge keeps his eyes closed and tries to recall his exact features. It's only a few days before Helge is discharged but already he's attached. They've been inseparable.

Noah is the boy's only friend.

Noah tells him they'll meet again, to think of him often throughout the years. That if he wishes hard enough Noah will once again appear. Helge's weak, falls for it in a heartbeat and solemnly swears with big eyes. About Ulrich - Helge doesn't breathe one word.

Noah doesn't feel much of anything after he remands the boy to his parents' care. He feels a vague curiosity to see what the intervening years hold. Wonders what abuses Helge will suffer that he'd be able to turn to his benefit.

He figures it might be hard to read 33 years on. It isn't a problem though - Noah isn't that invested.

 

 

 

The first time he meets the man Helge, it's at the cabin. Helge lives there despite what had been done to him there. Noah thinks that it might be a reaction to seeing the rift. That Helge can't let his sense of wonderment at it go despite their being a thick film of trauma overtop.

It benefits Noah, at least.

It's immediately apparent that in the preceding 33 years the mighty have fallen. All that the Doppler's have left is the cabin. Gone is the mansion, gone is the money.

Helge's parents are both dead. It's almost a shame Noah can't show up and give old Greta a scare, but anyways - he doesn't have the time.

It's all about time and timing.

Helge startles when he first sees him. But in the minutes before Helge is climbing out of his Volkswagen, pressing a fist into his teary eyes.

Noah smiles.

 

 

 

"Do you remember my face?"

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Helge

 

 

 

It isn't right. Helge knows it isn't right.

It isn't something _God_ would want.

He doesn't want to do this anymore and he says as much.

The way Noah _looks_ at him makes his blood freeze in his veins.

_There is no option of saying no Helge._

But Noah isn't his mother and it's different. Helge's a man now, and he knows right from wrong. He should be able to say no.

His hands shake just from the thought of doing it again. The means are quickly outpacing their ability to make up for the end.

It takes everything in him just to go against Noah. Helge has never gone against anyone, ever. Except for - except for times Helge has no business thinking about.

But Noah - Noah is his guardian angel who appeared from the dark to give Helge light.

He's a friend, the first Helge has ever had. The only.

He's an angel, but maybe he's a devil too.

The thought frightens Helge. If it's true the boys have died for nothing.

Helge isn't sure he has the constitution to make sure they didn't die for nothing.

Helge isn't sure why he puts the screwdriver between them, like some ill defined threat. Before he does it, he already knows there's no way he could follow through. It's not even a proper threat until Noah makes it into one. And Helge really shouldn't have -

The boys though. The dead boys.

Helge doesn't want to do this anymore.

His faith isn't strong enough.

The air is electric and heavy between them when Noah presses in. Presses tight against the sharp end of the screwdriver, grabs Helge's forearm in an iron clad grip. Helge almost drops the screwdriver his hands are shaking so badly. Noah pushes forward harder and Helge draws back to make room for him - so that he isn't hurt.

Helge's already lost before Noah lets go of his arm.

His bluff has been called. Only Helge hadn't meant for it to be a bluff, only it's too weak to be anything else.

He feels like crying, almost does when Noah draws him close and wraps him tightly in a hug.

The touch is soft, firm, tentative, inviting.

Helge has never been hugged before.

Noah keeps an arm around him for a while after, but it no longer feels like a comfort. Instead it feels malicious. Like he's making sure Helge knows he's been put in his place.

Or maybe that's Helge's own shame at work.

He stands motionless by the chair - the cursed monstrosity he helped Noah create - while Noah wipes his hands and shrugs on his jacket.

"One more thing." Noah intones slowly, deliberately, as he pauses at the door, about to climb the steps. Helge still frozen deep inside the room by the chair, "What you pulled just now Helge, gives me the strangest impulse to throw you to the floor and fuck you."

Noah leaves and all the air in the room gets sucked out with him.

Helge feels like he can't breathe for a second, and promptly convinces himself he heard wrong.

 

 

 

The boys won't stay dead, Helge reasons, once they fix it all. 

The boys will stay dead, though, if Helge stops now.

Noah doesn't mention Helge's gaffe, only squeezes his shoulder in a comforting way the next time they meet.

That, if anything, Helge takes as proof that Noah couldn't have possibly said what Helge thinks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Noah

 

 

 

Noah has a kill list, Helge doesn't exactly know this.

There are two names which Claudia had added, the rest of them are Noah's selection.

Yasin, for instance, had to die. His crime had been getting Martha killed.

There is of course a higher purpose, and that is what Noah emphasizes when he's grooming Helge.

It isn't difficult because it's true.

If Noah cannot fulfill his goal, there will be no future.

And it's maybe a little ironic, that it has fallen to him. He's reckless and doesn't care too much about death.

Kahnwald believes closing the loop will bring balance. Noah is appreciative of any extra time the loop affords them. Kahnwald would be too, if he were smart.

It's been a long time since Noah has called him Jonas.

 

 

 

Despite himself, Noah takes a liking to Helge.

It's like the man has been unable to grow. He's childlike and naive. No doubt the trauma has caused a psychological effort but Helge is _so_ stunted it nearly stirs pity.

Really, it's the sweetness that gets to him.

Helge mother hens over him, offers him food and drink and frets, get frightened that first time when Noah takes off his shirt so as not to get blood on it while they're cleaning up. Noah finds himself wondering about that.

Helge is good to the boys.

He doesn't - can't - know that they really don't deserve it.

It's his idea to wallpaper the room, to set up a little desk station with toys and have a bunk bed with pillows and blankets.

The man even takes his only television and hauls it down for the brats' use.

He feeds them the food right out of his own mouth.

That doesn't stir anything in Noah, it means nothing next to seeing someone, emaciated, sacrifice their last scrap of food to let their child live a little longer.

Helge sometimes, irrationally, makes Noah very angry. Even though Helge isn't looking for a gold star or a pat on the back. Somehow that makes Noah even angrier. He has money - so much useless money that Helge could use - but he never tells Helge that out of spite.

He'd had to become proficient at covering his anger. Tampering it down so it sits still behind white teeth and blank eyes.

Helge can always tell when he's angry though. The man has a sixth sense for it. He draws back, and wrings his hands. His thick eyebrows draw together in uncertain fear.

At first, getting Helge to like him - to trust him - is just part of the act.

Until it isn't.

 

 

 

Noah knows he shouldn't have said it.

He's never been one to second guess himself. To regret.

In the moment, Helge has just come into his own. Has lost a little bit of that wounded innocence regarding him.

Noah doesn't know yet that that isn't what he should want.

He's satisfied, like a lion full of fresh blood, with the whole thing. With Helge trembling, trying haphazardly to threaten with a screwdriver of all things, the ways he's culled immediately with a small amount of reassurance and a _hug_.

The hug is warm. Because Noah may be a predator but Helge - he is genuinely fond of.

It's maybe a little too warm, makes Noah _feel_ things.

It's all intent - when he says what he says.

The slightest go ahead from Helge will have him crossing the threshold back into the room.

Noah realizes much too late who exactly it is he's trying to woo.

Helge is distressed, shocky and immobile. It's obvious he's read it as a threat and Noah wants to think it wasn't. But he's suddenly not sure himself.

There's a split second where Noah hates himself for even caring. Helge is a means to an end after all. Noah isn't looking to be damaged in the process of _caring_.

Still, this is the point in time where Noah can no longer hold the knowledge of Helge's abuse at arms length.

It affects him too, now.

The way Helge turns into himself in that moment - and Noah had thought they were past that, Helge hiding his scarred face - causes a visceral reaction.

Noah wants to _kill_ whoever did this to Helge.

But he knows he can't. He tampers down the impulse and dismisses it.

Then he leaves.

 

 

 

Helge, always so generous, let's him return to his side without comment.

Noah finds himself looking more than he ought. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
